I love being a freelancer because you get to do everything from drawing to full development and design and I even love the business side of it! This does mean, however, that time is money.. literally.

Here's a few shortcuts and tips to streamline and automate the tasks that don't require you spending hours for a great design:

Pindown

Problem: As designers, we spend (way too many) hours on Pinterest. I love this part of the design process and I actually believe that it's so important for inspiring you. I'll find create a board on Pinterest and download the images to design a moodboard for my client. However, saving each individual picture from your board will take you ages to do manually!

Solution: downloading the FREE Chrome extension 'Pindown' is a life saver. You simply click the little icon at the top of the board you want and it will download each individual image on that board! AMAZING.

Illustrator scripts

Scripts are a great time-saving tool for designers. There are some amazing free scripts that you can find to solve a manner of Illustrator sins. They really can save a huge amount of time and it's well worth searching for ones that can streamline your own process. 'John Wundes' and 'Hiroyuki Sato' are both leading developers in creating great free scripts. Here's a few that I really cannot do without:

Check out this amazing website, all about the best Photoshop practices: Photoshop Etiquette. Easy-to-read guides, some of the tips may seem obvious but it may get you to actually start implementing some the practices. My favourite few:

- Always use masks for your layers - never edit directly onto a layer.- Rename all of your layers and group them to keep your Photoshop files clean. This will save time if you re-visit a file months later.